On Saturday 20th January on channel Ftn Louise Wener is in Celebrity Poker Club 2,
according to the Radio Times online.
Starts at 12.00am until 1.30am.
Ftn can be found on Freeview: 20, on Sky: 157, on ntl/Telewest: 123
Just brought to my attention via this Comic Book Resources piece about titles they're looking forward to in 2007 is Phonogram, a new six-issue limited series on Image that's set in modern-day London but is based in the Britpop days of the mid-90s, thankfully not in a wholly nostalgic light though the album cover homages have been nice. I've only lightly cruised the first few issues but it looks pretty good, sort of a cross between Hellblazer, Transmetropolitan and Books Of Magic but with an Echobelly soundtrack. Could be promising.
Newsarama has the whole of the first issue available to read online and the first story arc, Rue Britannia, is supposed to be out in trade paperback in March though that presumes that the individual issues will have already come out by then, never a sure thing. But check it out. It actually made me sort of wish I still had my Sleeper CDs.
After Echobelly, the band whose videos I've most wanted to catch up on (thanks, YouTube!) is Sleeper. The 90s group, fronted by the outspoken Louise Wener, put out at least three albums from '95 to '97--Smart, The It Girl, and Pleased to Meet You, all worth picking up. Having now seen vids from all three, I'm convinced that one of the reasons they only lasted a few years and never won more fans here in the States was that this band never had great videos--even though they had a striking lead singer. Wener not only knew her way around a guitar, she also figured out along the way how to keep the cameras pointed at her.
"Can a single event, a simple twist of fate, dictate the way we go on to live our lives?" wonders Claire, the central character in Louise Wener's lovely, offbeat fourth novel, "The Half Life of Stars." In her brother Daniel's case, the answer may be yes. But the event in question was no simple twist of fate. When Daniel, a lawyer, disappears, leaving his wife and children behind, everyone has a theory . He's been kidnapped. He's intentionally dropped out, with the help of a mysterious Japanese organization. He's run off with another woman. But Claire is the only one with a notion of where he may have gone, and why.
Claire is an appealing narrator. She's divorced, sexy, irreverent, imaginative, probably the sanest member of a family held together by a net of lies. With her ex-husband, Michael, Claire searches for Daniel in Florida, where the family spent several unhappy years. Their father died of a heart attack on a trip to Cape Canaveral. Daniel, then a teenager, was with him. Claire has an idea that there may be some connection between her father's death and her brother's disappearance. Wener, the lead singer of the 1990s British band Sleeper, is at her best when she's exploring family relationships.
girly indie 12 November 2006, by millhouse ¶ 13:48
i was collating some tunes into a playlist on mp3 player the other day and struck on the idea of choosing my favourite inde tunes with girl singers. or something along those lines. i thought i may as well share it here - complete with links to the tracks (the quality is purposefully poor to save space - and hopefully to persuade anybody who downloads these and likes them to go out and obtain them properly so you can have a decent quality listenable version. any record company lawyer types watching - note the above, if you want me to take these down, consider it done.
you can right-click and 'save as...' for each file, though if you click on it, you may well hear a streamed version. i don't know.
- 01 Echobelly - Great Things A Britpop era band, and very good they were too. Part of the NWONW (New Wave Of New Wave) thing in the pre-Britpop days, before everybody starting wearing adidas and fred perry and thought they may as well start another 'genre'. This appeared on Britpop Now, the excellent BBC2 program summarising all those bands - watch this song here
- 02 Elastica - All Nighter Another Britpop band. Their first album is ace , I particularly like this one - better than Connection and Line Up in my opinion. The question remains though - is Justine Frischmann fit? 11 years and I still can't figure it out. I think she is. you decide
- 03 Sleeper - What Do I Do Now yep, another Britpop-era band. This is off their second album, the It Girl and one of my favourite sleeper songs, though I think Smart is generally a better album. Louise Wener is an author now with three books under her belt. Anybody who has seen any footage of Sleeper live will attest that they tend to like to play in cold venues a lot.
Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough?
Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral: a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire—divorced, irresponsible, fluent in six foreign languages yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire who knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him.
61st over: Pakistan 248-2 (Hafeez 55, Yousuf 75) Great news for England: it looks like it might start raining any second. Not so good is the introduction of Paul Collingwood (Test bowling average: 12m), and in his first over Yousuf steals a single to bring up the hundred partnership. "Talking of Britpop people, my first gig was Sleeper (massive crush on Louise Wener) supported by the Longpigs," says Andrew Benbow. "Crispin Hunt now works in the Houses of Parliament, and always looks a bit shocked when people whistle On and On behind him in the cantine. I say always, I'm the only person who has probably ever done it..." He must have kittens every time he reads all the 'she said's in interviews with Jade Goody. But only if we play five bowlers.
Subsequent issues will reference Oasis' DEFINITELY MAYBE, Blur's MODERN LIFE IS RUBBISH, Black Grape's IT'S GREAT WHEN YOU'RE STRAIGHT, YEAH!, Manic Street Preachers' THE HOLY BIBLE and Suede's self-titled debut.
A very pregnant Louise Wener is featured in this Britpop documentary called the Britpop Story (which I'm sure all of you have seen already). But in case you haven't seen it, it's available on youtube. Please note that
BBC has a habit of pulling down videos, so watch these while you can (or alternatively you can download the files):
As Top of the Pops airs for the last time tonight, former guest and fan Louise Wener remembers
'Your single's in the Top 10. You're going to be on Top of the Pops.' From the age of six, I'd played these words through my head thousands of times. When I finally heard them for real, I knew I'd officially become a pop star.
TOTP was the dream. I grew up on it. Every Thursday evening throughout its heyday, I'd capture the best bits by holding my tape recorder up to our television speaker until my arm ached. Between shows, I'd wear out the tapes I'd made, reliving every detail of my favourite performances. Bowie doing 'Ashes to Ashes'. Blondie oozing her way through 'Heart of Glass'. Bob Geldof spitting out 'I Don't Like Mondays' and, um, David Essex singing 'Gonna Make You a Star'. In a childhood landscape of power cuts, Mr Whippy ice cream and Morecambe and Wise, Top of the Pops was a piece of magic, a portal to an exotic and fabulous world.
The main character in Goodnight Steve McQueen, the first novel written by Louise Wener, is on the other side of the question of whether to give up. Danny McQueen (his real first name is Steve) is a guitarist in a London three-piece called Dakota that always seems just around the corner from the big break. Danny’s girlfriend has bigger things in mind for him than working at the video store and playing the small-club gig, and basically lays it down for him – either score a record deal or quit music.
Danny and his bandmates make one last, huge push, with some quite hilarious results at times. Wener -- who was the lead singer of Sleeper, a fairly successful Britpop band in the U.K. -- is at her best when Danny is dealing with the other two guys in Dakota, Dexys Midnight Runners-obsessed lead singer Vince and affable, naïve drummer Matty.
The latest single from The Hot Puppies is infectious and seductive in equal measure. 'The Girl Who's Too Beautiful' is good on so many levels, and each level conjures up different memories to different people. For myself it recalled a mixture of classic Sleeper with Louise Wener at her best, seducing me as a teenager, combined with the generic modern day rules of new indie. It is sexually charged indie pop that will drag you from pillar to post, and confirm The Hot Puppies as a force to keep your eyes peeled for.
As the lead singer of 90s pop band Sleeper, Louise Wener had no interest in having children and ending up knee-deep in nappies. Then last year she had a daughter - and discovered that she loved motherhood. But she also found that for her generation admitting such a thing was almost shameful ...
It is three weeks before my baby is due and I am sitting in my GP's waiting room. A woman sits down next to me and stares intently at my bump. She asks if this baby is my first and I nod, expecting some words of congratulations. Instead, she frowns and shakes her head. "Your life will never be the same," she says. She doesn't mean this in a good way. She means I have no idea what I'm in for.
Directed by longtime collaborator Maria Mochnacz, the DVD a 28-minute interview with Harvey about writing, recording and performing. Among the featured songs are "Down by the Water," "It's You" and "Meet Ze Monsta" captured at stops in the United States and across Europe while the band was out behind that year's "Uh Huh Her."
Mochnacz and Harvey have a lengthy relationship that covers every PJ Harvey music video, some of which remain unreleased. She has also directed clips for Robert Miles, M People, Echobelly, Sleeper and Sven Vath, among others.
“I am from another land,” announces Lisa O’Neill of Sing-Sing, “not so hard to understand.” Let’s give that some perspective: Lisa’s land is 1995, a place where Blur and Oasis are going at it tooth and nail, any likely lads seen drinking in Camden Town are snagging record deals (and hefty coke fueled advances) and, somehow, skinny indie girls are unlikely sex symbols. Today’s territory finds Blur’s lead singer as a cartoon character, Liam and Noel acting out the parts of human cartoons (to great aplomb, it should be noted) whilst Menswe@r are more Menswhere? and Louise Wener is inexplicably writing novels about poker players. Sadly, Sing-Sing have yet to change with the times.
It really shouldn't be a surprise in this day and age to see three sassy, glamorous women on their way to greatness in the music industry, but disappointingly it is. Ten years since Cerys Matthews fronted Catatonia in a nice dress, and Louise Wener and Justine Frischmann were regularly bothering the charts, Abi from the Zutons and Sarah from Belle and Sebastian are two of the very few British women you can see on TOTP in an indie band. The gig circuit is crowded with countless bands with women in them - Duke Spirit, Sons and Daughters and Tilly and the Wall to name but a few - but somehow these groups never seem to make the leap up.
Supergrass grows up
By Shilpa Ganatra/ Across the Pond
Friday, February 10, 2006
Few British bands in their right mind would choose to tour the States so soon after the pause of the holiday season.
But Oxford’s Supergrass is an exception to every rule. Itkicks off a short U.S. tour at the Paradise tonight.
The most surprising fact of the tour, though, is that the band is still going strong after 12 years.
When Supergrass formed in 1994, the British resistance to grunge was already in full force. Blur had cemented its place in everyone’s affections with ‘‘Parklife.” Oasis merited its rock ’n’ roll swagger by releasing‘‘Definitely Maybe.” And the London Suede had effectively invented metrosexuality with its eponymous debut.
By that time, too, bandwagon followers had sprung up. You’d be forgiven for not remembering Echobelly, Menswear, Shed Seven and Sleeper. Supergrass - singer-guitarist Gaz Coombes, bassist Mick Quinn, drummer Danny Goffey and Gaz’ brother Rob Coombes on keyboards - emerged as yet another B-list band.
'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'' Admittedly, the opening sentence of the Charles Dickens' classic A Tale of Two Cities, is a peculiar way to describe that fleeting period in rock music history known as Britpop.
But it also best summarises the lofty heights achieved in music creativity and its spectacular fall as the '90s British indie music scene self-destructed under the weight of its own hype and expectation.
As musically influential periods go, it never took on say, the cultural and political significance of the '70's punk movement. It was, however, a period that saw a resurgence of the great British bands and their world-wide impact on the pop music scene.
Now, The Britpop Story, a documentary to be aired on Staurday (BBC Prime 10.30am and 5.30pm) and repeated on Sunday (2.30pm and 10.30pm) attempts to recapture this fascinating period and all the characters and bands which shaped it.
John Harris, journalist and author of The Last Party: Britpop, Blair And The Demise Of English Rock (2003) hosts a doccie that features Blur's Graham Coxon; Elastica's Justine Frischmann; Sleeper's Louise Wener; founder of Creation records, Alan McGee, who managed the likes of The Stone Roses and Oasis.
Synopsis
Funny, poignant and entirely original, this is the stunning new novel by the author Goodnight Steve Mcqueen. Have you ever wished you could walk away from it all? Not for a day, not for a week, but for good. Claire's older brother, Daniel, has disappeared. He leaves work one Friday afternoon, shortly before Christmas, and vanishes into thin air. Married, successful, rich, there seems no reason why he would abandon his life. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had enough? Set between London and Miami, this is the story of a family with ghosts to bury. It opens on the day of the Challenger shuttle explosion at Cape Canaveral; a tragic moment that rips this family apart and sets Daniel's disappearance in motion some 18 years later. In the midst of it all sits Claire - promiscuous, divorced, irresponsible; fluent in six foreign languages, yet hopeless at interpreting life. It is Claire that knows Daniel best. It is Claire who becomes convinced that she knows where her older brother is and sets off on a journey to find him. Part mystery, part love story, part comic road trip, this is the story of a woman unravelling her family's secrets and healing their wounds, while finding a route to real love.
www.buy.com is listing a different cover variant to the Perfect Play. I am assuming this is only for the US version.
It is also selling for less than Amazon, and if you spend over $25 at Buy.com, shipping is free. I've bought a lot of DVDs from Buy.com and they're fast and reliable.
Sleeper, live at Glastonbury 1995. Try not to get em all at once. I may be trying to stress test my bandwidth but ~150 MB worth of video may be a bit too much, so leave one or two 'til next year will you?
And while I'm here, I know how much the constant downloading of files and codecs and players and whatnot sucks. So for my third & final year University project I decided to improve things a little. I'd be eternally grateful if you helped out by filling in a small survey on media from the web. You don't have to provide an email or anything, just tick some boxes. Should only take a few minutes.
The actor Nick Moran was just on E4's Hijacked By section.
His final choice of music video was Sleeper's Vegas, which he accompanied with a story about how he used to hang with the band and became such good mates that he was asked to join. He agreed, but a certain film called Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels got in the way.
Just thought I'd post it because googling this info brought up nothing so it might not be previously known.
E4+1 are repeating this show right now so if you read this before 2:55pm today you can see the Vegas video in full.
The inclusion of The Weird Sisters in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire follows a scene in the last Harry Potter film which showed Ian Brown waggling his finger around in a pub for about two seconds. Personally, we hope the Britpop/Harry Potter relationship keeps up - we'd love to find out that Harry's parents were Louise Wener and the bassist from Terrorvision.
I live in the US and we're slow on getting these UK Magazines. It is also really expensive ($10.95), but I think this one is worth it considering a digital version of the magazine will cost you about $9.95.
Following acclaimed volumes dedicated to The Beatles’ solo years, Punk, Goth, Glam and the New Romantics, NME Originals proudly presents Britpop. Covering the intensely entertaining period of British popular music between the emergence of Suede in the early ‘90s to our infamous front cover attack on the Blair government at the end of the decade, NME Originals Britpop celebrates the glory years of Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, The Verve, Shed 7, Sleeper and The Spice Girls.
Reprinting – for the first time since their original publication – many interviews, reviews and news stories from the pages of NME and Melody Maker, Britpop is a blow by blow, hit by hit account of those heady years when London regained its place as the centre of the rock ‘n’ roll universe. Mile End, Knebworth, ‘Roll With It’ versus ‘Country House’, Euro ’96, Jarvis v Jacko… these are just a few of the legendary events captured within the 148 glossy pages of this mad-fer-it magazine.
Other characters who appear along the way include Gazza, Robbie, Chris Evans and, er, Menswear. It’s got nuffink to do wiv yer Vorsprung Durch Teknik y’know.
NME Originals: Britpop is out now.
There's very few Sleeper mentionings, they might as well changed the title to "OASIS and BLUR Magazine". I was kind of annoyed that the Spice Girls got more attention than dear Sleeper! Here is an excerpt with Louise Wener from NME (17 Feb 1996):
The Perfect Play (Paperback) Author: Louise Wener
ISBN: 006058548X
Format: Paperback
Publish Date: 10/1/2005
Pages: 352
Publisher: Perennial
Annotation: Audrey's father is a poker shark, and now that she's well into her 30s, she's thinking that maybe poker is her destiny, too. With Big Louie as her mentor, Audrey embarks on a poker odyssey that lands her in Las Vegas. But what about her devoted boyfriend, Joe? And her plans for marriage and children and career? As she gambles for high stakes, the heroine of this witty novel learns about more than poker. Before she turned to writing fiction, the author, Louise Wener, was the lead singer for the British pop band Sleeper.
Praise
Publishers Weekly
"[A] nervy, crackling novel....Emotional but never sentimental, Wener's novel is full of wisdom about luck and skill, grace and nerve...." 03/01/2004
Kirkus
"[E]ngaging prose and endearing characters bode well for Wener's new career." 04/15/2004
MARION, Powder, Salad? Not the latest vegetarian alternative to be added to the Starbucks lunchtime menu, just a clutch of acts that crept into the Britpop huddle all those years ago
(excerpt)
Wener
And it’s always nice to catch a glimpse of the scene's sex symbol-turned children’s author, Louise Wener of Sleeper fame, even though she's now in the middle of a blooming pregnancy.
Mixed in with snippets of the changing political scene at the time (Conservative decline/New Labour’s birth), Harris’ show really did create an intoxicating cocktail of the state of Britain at the time.
A further delve into the archive followed as a repeat of Blur’s prettyboy frontman Damon Albarn comically introducing a bunch of acts he insisted were about to give America a run for their money was aired.
And while Supergrass, Blur themselves and PJ Harvey have certainly stood the test of time, bands like Powder rarely impressed anyone outside of Camden. The spite in not including an Oasis live performance was therefore laughable.
Things quickly picked up with Storyville’s acclaimed Live Forever documentary featuring much of the same footage, but it was worth it to see a now world-weary Damon Albarn and a thoroughly unapologetic Noel Gallagher give their forthright views on their public fallout.
It's been a while and you probably know this already, but there is a review on the news.bbc.co.uk (Entertainment section) about what everyone in the BritPop scene are doing now - and Sleeper are mentioned - but they mention Louise having written three novels not two.
So I checked on Amazon.co.uk in case I missed a new one in the pipeline,
there is a new one due next April. They have it listed as 'Wener Untitled
#1' but this is the synopsis:
Synopsis Part mystery, part love story, part comic road trip, this is the story of
a woman unravelling her family's secrets and healing their wounds, while
finding a route to real love. Claire's older brother, Daniel, has
disappeared. Has he been killed? Has he been kidnapped? Or has he just had
enough?"
Britpop - Where are they now? Wednesday, 17 August 2005, 07:28 GMT 08:28 UK
By Ian Youngs
BBC News entertainment reporter
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the chart battle between Blur and Oasis at the height of Britpop. But what has happened to the stars from that scene?
(excerpt)
Sleeper
Sleeper singer Louise Wener has reinvented herself as a successful novelist, with three books published.
She also appeared on Celebrity Poker Club 2 on TV channel Challenge in 2004, facing Big Brother's "Nasty" Nick and snooker player Willie Thorne.
Bassist Diid Osman is in management and drummer Andy Maclure started a Punk Rock Karaoke night, in which fans sing with a live band, with Steve Lamacq.
Just saw the Britpop thing on BBC4 . Lousie was on looking good and talking sense wearing a blue dress and is about I'd say in my non medical opinon about 6-7months pregnant. take it easy Vu
This week marks the 10th anniversary of the chart battle between Blur and Oasis at the height of Britpop. In the first of a series of features, we look at how Britpop was born.
(excerpt)
Confidence
Political and musical developments went together for a time
As Oasis enjoyed hits with rousing anthems Live Forever and Cigarettes and Alcohol, Blur hit new heights with Girls and Boys and Parklife, social commentary dressed as pop hits.
That set the scene for their chart showdown the following summer - and for a new crop of acts like Supergrass, Menswear, Sleeper and Dodgy to take the stage.
Some of those bands were inspired by the confidence and success of the Britpop pioneers, while others merely happened to come along at the same time.
But they all became part of Britpop and helped the UK's alternative rock regain its voice - for a while.
The Britpop Story In August 1995 Blur and Oasis were engaged in a head-to-head chart battle that divided music fans and led to a wider argument about British pop music.
On Tuesday 16 August, BBC FOUR marks the tenth anniversary of this grudge match with Britpop Night.
John Harris, journalist and author of The Last Party, the definitive study of the Britpop and New Labour, presents The Britpop Story.
This documentary charts the rise of Britpop, its brief romance with New Labour, and the emergence of the 'new lad' culture. Finally, as Britpop declines, he asks what legacy has been left behind.
Including contributions from Blur's Graham Coxon, Elastica's Justine Frischmann, Sleeper's Louise Wener, former New Labour insider, Darren Kalynuk and the founder of Creation records, Alan McGee. [S]
Today's riff A Britpop special. In a frankly humbling development, it's exactly ten years since a young, lithe, centre-partinged Smyth rushed to Parrott Records in Canterbury in his lunchtime to buy Roll With It (but not Country House; Oasis always did the better B-sides back in the day, and I always empathised with the Manc skanks). It was the zenith of Britpop, and it brings a tear to the eye. So, today, favourite Britpop memories - Northern Uproar? Louise Wener looking staggeringly attractive (and very cold) on that Lamacq-presented Britpop Now program? those ironic pink 'Take That Love You' T-shirts? Select magazine? Bluetonic? The chorus on Daydreamer? Ooh I'm getting all warm and nostalgic now. I could almost drink a warm can of Carling.
The issue contains a big special section on the mid-90s Britpop scene, which includes new interviews with various Britpop bands. The issue are features the first American interview and photo-shoot with The Tears (the new band featuring Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler of Suede). Here are the details.
Without Britpop, would we have had hit guitar groups, stadium anthems or rock stars on Newsnight? Ten years on, John Harris looks back on how Blur, Oasis, Pulp and co changed the face of UK music
(excerpt)
Frischmann is about to begin life as a mature student in the US. Cocker called time on Pulp in 2002, and seems to have settled into a life of semi-retirement. The lion's share of Britpop's mid-table attractions - Sleeper, Gene, Shed Seven - have split up. By the time you get into the bands who fell at the first hurdle, you begin to wonder whether they ever existed at all; who, aside from the most hard-bitten trivia buffs, has any clear memory of Powder, Northern Uproar, Laxton's Superb or Octopus?
...
"I loved their honesty, their openness, the way they treated their success," says Louise Wener, the one-time singer with Sleeper, now a successful writer whose third novel is about to go into print. "They weren't embarrassed or ashamed by it. It was, 'I'm going to be a rock'n' roll star, I'm going to ride around in a Rolls-Royce, if I make a million quid I'm going to roll around in it.' They were the chavs of Britpop."
This Village Voice article about the demise of BritPop ten years ago did two things for me: One, made me feel really old. Two, made me realize that while I've mentioned my falling out with BritPop before in passing, I've never really gotten into specifics. I guess now's as good a time as any.
(excerpt)
The thing is, after a while I realized I wasn't really enjoying it all that much. More and more of the acts the British press was trying to convince me would be the next saviours of music turned out to be, well, more than a little bit crap - you can only recycle the same influences so many times before it all gets excessively generic and creatively stagnant. Which isn't so much a problem if you just want something that sounds like the last thing you liked, but if you wanted something more, it was sadly deficient. By this point, my CD collection was overflowing with the latest "next big things" as decreed by Select, NME, Q, etc - Shed Seven, Sleeper, Echobelly, Kenickie, Embrace, Ocean Colour Scene, The Bluetones... Not inherently bad, some of it quite passable, but not really stuff that stood up especially well outside the Britpop bubble. Instead of renewing my passion for the genre, it only reinforced how disillusioned I was with it all. Combine this epiphany with my discovery of far more interesting and adventurous music from what would soon be known as indie rock originating from this side of the Atlantic and you were looking at a complete sea change in my musical tastes. And it turns out those cute girls were only interested in tall skinny dudes with lame-o Anglo affectations. Bitter? Me? Nah.
My only Sleeper friend has decided to move back to her hometown. I knew she wouldn't last more than six months !! Haha. Wuss. You heard me, Celeste.
My bicycle is FIXED FINALLY. I got a flat last Sunday (after spending some quality time with Celeste at the Gay/Lesbian Pride Festival) and have been pretty bicycleless for a week now.
I went to buy a repair kit for my tubes and ended up causing more harm than good.
So I went to the bike store to get a new tube (I can't fix the flat tire for the life of me !! I suck !!!!) and they FREAKING SOLD ME THE WRONG KIND.
By the time I took my tires back to get it exchanged for the correct size, they were closed!!!
I finally got some free time to drive there today and got it exchanged so I finally fixed my flats. Tubes are $5, that is totally worth it - rather than spending hours trying to find and patch a hole.
So my bike is useable now. Everything is in its right place now. Life is good. I am going to take it for a spin to downtown !
As the garrisons of the Blairite army wind up their years of service, it's worth remembering those soldiers who fell in the early period of the new Labour revolution. I speak of those members of the Britpop corps who failed to make it to 2005 (or even 1997) to collect their war pension. The indie bands which warranted only footnotes in that edition of Vanity Fair with Liam Gallagher and Patsy Kensit draped in a Union Jack. "London swings!" announced the cover, but it didn't for very long for Dodgy, Menswear, Echobelly, Kenickie, Sleeper, Dubstar . . . (I could go on.) Many of these bands were scorned at the time, but despite their identikit one-word band names - and some would say identikit guitar-pop - I think reappraisals are in order.
Sleeper, for example, may have consisted of the singer Louise Wener (she is now a successful novelist) and a backing band so nondescript they earned the nickname "Sleeperblokes", but they produced, over the course of three mid-1990s albums, a number of great, now largely forgotten singles. Take "Inbetweener". Its lyrics about suburban ennui are so tacky it could easily have featured on Blur's lamentable Great Escape album - yet it's a quite impeccable pop song (you can download it, along with "What Do I Do Now?", "Sale of the Century" and others, on iTunes).
I would happily recommend lost Britpop classics until the ice caps melted and David Davis became prime minister, but, in brief, try rediscovering Lauren Laverne's old group Kenickie ("I Would Fix You", "Punka", "In Your Car" - all fantastic, all on [http://www.mycokemusic.com]), or Dubstar (witty, melancholic electro-pop; try "Not So Manic Now" or "Stars" from iTunes), or Echobelly (if only for Sonya Aurora Madan's incredible voice - get "King of the Kerb" from iTunes). It occurs to me that these bands have few Y chromosomes between them, and this brief bout of gender equality in indie music is another reason to look kindly on an unfairly maligned period in British music. After all, how often do female artists grace the cover of the NME these days?
Vous vous souvenez de Sleeper? En 1994-95, Sleeper caracolait en tête des charts indés anglais avec leurs singles Swallow, InBetweener, Twisted (à vérifier : c'est mon frère qui a un des singles en question). A l'époque, le monde indé se divisait en 2 camps : les pro-Sleeper contre les pro-Elastica et les pro-Blur contre les pro-Oasis (couv' Inrocks Oasis versus Blur si j'me souviens bien). Il y'avait également des trouble-fêtes de luxe comme Echobelly, Salad et Madder Rose pour les filles, et Pulp, Suède + the Auteurs pour les garçons : on pouvait mettre tout ce petit monde sous un même qualificatif : la brit-pop (OK les Auteurs, c'est de la new wave of new wave, mais c'est de la brit-pop classieuse quand même). Moi j'étais plutôt Louise Wener de Sleeper que Justine Frischmann d'Elastica (j'avais un copain qui était complètement amoureux de Justine Frischmann, la copine de Damon Albarn de Blur). medium_louise.jpgDans ces 2 filles, il y'avait un côté garçon manqué par la coupe de cheveux courte et en même temps ces filles étaient hyper féminines, elles avaient du chien, de l'allure, du caractère, elles étaient sexys quoi! presque dominatrices. de véritables James Bond Girls ou Riot Girls qui mettaient littéralement à terre (de désir et d'envie) tous les mecs qu'elles croisaient sur leur passage). Dans Trainspotting, il y'a cette scène de discothèque formidable où Ewan Mc Gregor tombe littéralement en extase sur Kelly McDonald : medium_diane-kelly_macdonald-trainspotting.jpgelle est là seule accoudée au comptoir du bar avec sa robe à paillettes et il sait que c'est elle, the IT girl, la fille de ses rêves. Et si je me souviens bien (je l'ai revu il y'a qqs mois sur M6, j'ai pas le DVD), quand on la voit apparaître comme une illumination, c'est Sleeper (single Atomic présent sur la B.O du film) qui est en fonds sonore. Et cette scène et ce qui suit dans la rue quand il sort de la discothèque pour la rattraper avant qu'elle ne monte dans un taxi, je la considère comme une des + belles scènes de cinéma. Les néons de la discothèque, l'image qui tourne comme si on était sous ecstasy, et la musique de Sleeper qui t'envoies dans les étoiles...Alors grâce au post de Turquoise Days, je suis content d'apprendre que Louise Wener est toujours vivante et qu'elle se porte plutôt bien, vu qu'elle attend probablement un bébé et qu'elle a écrit 2 romans manifestement passionnants depuis le split de Sleeper fin déc. 98. Les grandes dames ne meurent jamais.
I haven't written in a while (not that you missed me). I hope things are good with you.
I just wanted to let you know that
Spring is here.... which means that I will probably be outside a lot (which also means lack of updates, boo hoo!)
So, here is a recent photograph of my current bicycle and me.
Yeah, we look tough, yo.
And of all the rotten luck - I found out that I won a date... with a guy ! It also involves getting filthy in mud and a prom. I have no idea what's going on, details are pretty vague, but I was promised it will be fun and that I didn't have to make out with Aaron or Theresa (my other date I guess).
Oh, I helped my friend Chrissy get this gig with Girl in a Coma! To be honest, all I did was told Chrissy that GIAC was looking for local Philly bands and the rest just few into place. Anyroad, the band is featured on their local newspaper:
On Myspace they liken themselves to "candy that makes noise," but that might bring to mind some sugary-sweet pop band. Nope. Scratchy-voiced Xrissy and the rest of this Philly four-piece make raw, melodic punk pop about lust, angst and feeling fucked up. That puts them squarely in the "noisy cough drop" category.
--Patrick Rapa
Wed., May 11, 9 p.m., $5, with Girl in a Coma and Mini Band, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298.
Also, it's much too late to mention it, but Canada was great, I had such a good time there. I secretly want to be Canadian now. Thanks for reading, have a great day !
Louise Wener is known to many as the lead singer of the 90’s UK band Sleeper, but in recent years, she’s taken up a new career: author. "The biggest hurdle was admitting to myself that I wanted to do it," she says. "It's quite intimidating when you first think of it, but once I started it was so enjoyable, I couldn't stop." In her latest novel, Goodnight Steve McQueen, a young guitarist named Danny (but who was born Steve McQueen) is spurred on to musical success after his girlfriend gives him a deadline for success or she’ll leave him. What neither of them bargains for is that the long-struggling musician and his shambling bandmates will actually wind up hitting the big time. Wener emailed special Beatrice correspondent Rachel Kramer Bussel from her UK home to discuss writing in a male voice, band life and the status of women in rock.
How did you first get into writing? What are the differences for you in writing songs and writing longer material, whether articles or novels? I'm not sure how I got into writing in the first place, it just feels like something I've always done, be it poems, lyrics, articles or just keeping a diary. Towards the end of the band I think I became frustrated with the constraints of the three-minute pop song. There are only so many lyrics you can cram in there. My songs were always character driven and the idea of expanding them into a novel seemed like a logical next step.
Goodnight Steve McQueen took about six months to complete and The Perfect Play a little under a year. With GSM I had all the research in place and was able to draw on my experiences of playing and touring with a rock band. The gigs, the venues, the smell of the tour bus, the characters were all right there in my head. With The Perfect Play, I did a lot of additional research. It's set in the world of poker and gambling, so I had to learn how to play poker properly and spent a lot of time in casinos; losing money and learning from pro players, studying their mannerisms and behavior.
Well not much in the way of news... but I have been putting together a slideshow of Sleeper/Louise Wener photographs on my iPod, haha. Hopefully when I have the time for it, I will scan even more images of Louise and put them online for others to use with their iPod Photo.
You can set a Sleeper playlist when presenting it on television, it works out pretty good.
If you want to read more about that picture about, go here: 3/9/2005 Make your own damn iPod sock cover. It was pretty fun to do. I wish I had Sleeper patches, as that is what I would sew on it !
I don't normally post my blogs, but this is a special case, because I'm hoping to meet other people while I'm in Toronto.
My friend Karren wrote back:
oh my god!!! VU ahhh!!! i'm so happy you're coming here!! it's about time!! hehe. oh, i can't wait!!! yay! yay! yaaaay!!
you are TOTALLLY WELCOME to stay with us....we'd LOVE to have you over, vu!! :) stay, stay, stay! :)
I love it that she's so excited.
My laptop is coming along, but I don't think I will be posting/updating as much. I have a pretty solid schedule, and I'm not sure if I'll have the time to be honest...
I got my flight itinerary today. The roundtrip ticket was pretty amazingly cheap, it was $169.10 plus $67.65 (taxes/fees). I used www.priceline.com, mostly because I've used them in the past for cheap airfares (and William Shatner is their spokesman!!).
I guess I should let you know that I'll be staying mostly with Linh, my old penpal from 1993. It's great, we met through a friendship booklet because she liked my xfiles and music selections. We became good, good friends.
We finally met in October 1996 (see picture). I had to alter the picture because I haven't asked Linh for permission to post it.
There's other people in it - my oldest (in terms of knowing) friend, Melinda and Mark. Mel is doing well I hear. She's leaving Japan and embarking on Manchester or something ? Sigh, it must be nice to have her job !
I will also finally meet my two old, dear friends, the twins of coolness: Karren & Sandy. Hooray!
Anyroad, if you live in Toronto/near it, send me a message. Let's hang out! I'll buy you beer and stuff.
Anyway, for something completely different, my german friend sent me these two links: megaflicks and www.penisland.net. No seriously hilarious links!!
I figure I didn't want anyone creating a Sleeper group (and then abandoning it), so I've decided to start my own. It's pretty pathetic right now with me being the president and only member:
Feel free to send a friends request to me if you like Sleeper.
The other good news is that I have a billion Sleeper requests for music downloading now. This confirms that there are more than three people that visits this website.
I want to thank people for sending me other music to try out, particularly now I love Charlotte Hatherley now.
Name: Guy Comments:
Hi just thought you'd like to know that bbc 6 music are putting out the 1996 brixton sleeper gig tonight ( monday 21st feb) but you can listen again for
1 week at www.bbc.co.uk/6music
and go to dream ticket.
Name:
Simon Rosher
Comments:
This is very detailed. Scarily detailed. I wonder if it is perhaps a little
too detailed. Please cease and desist from stalking the woman that I love and I
follow. You don't follow her, I do.
Louise Wener will always be my Valentine.
Sharing is caring, so if you want Sleeper videos, please use the latest aim and grab things from me sleepercat. It takes a while to download, but it's well worth it when you see Louise doing what she does best (er, that's singing and looking sexy).
While you're downloading things from me, you might as well grab the William Shatner's "rendition" of Common People -- YES THAT PULP SONG !!!! In some aspect, it is far superior than Jarvis Cocker's version. Imagine this: "You. Want. To sleep with. Common. People like. Me?" Oooh William Shatner...
Louise Wener, Britpop star of the Nineties, asks why there's little room for women in pop's latest golden age
In 1992, the all-female rock band L7 made a ground-breaking appearance on British television. As the final chords clattered from their instruments, lead singer Donita Sparks unzipped her jeans, pulled down her pants and flashed her bare muff at the world. It was the most seditious thing I had ever seen. Since Elvis first shook his hips on The Milton Berle Show the engine of all rock music, its heartbeat, its posture, its very driving force had always been male sexuality. L7 gave you hope that its future might also be female.
By the mid-Nineties female-led rock bands were everywhere. Sleeper, Elastica, Catatonia, Belly, The Breeders and Hole. Courtney Love was the new Janis Joplin, PJ Harvey was the new Patti Smith. We played as loud as the boys and partied harder. It felt potent. Liberating. Modern. For the briefest of moments, the genie was out of the bottle.
Fast forward 10 years and there's barely a female rock voice left. Of the 23 categories contested at this year's NME awards, a British female artist is nominated in only one: World's Sexiest Women. How has it come to this? Where is the female Alex Kapranos? Where are the female Razorlight? Didn't we make it easy for girls to become rock musicians and gain the respect of their male peers?
The truth is, the world of indie rock was then, and still is, a doggedly macho environment, notoriously unforgiving of female interlopers. It's rare for women to be acclaimed as musical collaborators and difficult for them to co-exist as part of a band. Inevitably they will be singled out, sexualised, and presented as solo artists by proxy. When I was the lead singer of Sleeper, I was regularly pressed into doing interviews without my male bandmates and rarely asked questions about making music. When I sang explicitly sexual lyrics I was accused of courting attention or merely being sordid. It was the classic male double standard.
I'm not sure if I can properly thank the person who sent me these Sleeper videos, but thank you ! You know who you are.
I am having a bit of a problem screen capturing video images because of the weird Divx format ... but the video looks great and I haven't seen 80% of this stuff. Especially all the live performances. So good. It makes me miss Sleeper even more.
I've uploaded this file, I'm not sure how long I can host it, so grab them while it's available:
Sleeper - Life's a Gas (live)
Students will write songs in the style of Noel Gallagher's
GCSE music students could soon get a whole section of the curriculum devoted to mid-1990s "Britpop" bands like Oasis, Blur and Pulp.
If exam board Edexcel is successful in its plans, youngsters will be able to write songs in their style and offer critiques of hits of the era.
But a spokeswoman told BBC News that students would still have to devote 50% of their time to classical music.
Edexcel's plans are subject to approval by England's exams watchdog, the QCA.
'Mad for it'
Popular music, up until the present day, is already offered as part of the GCSE.
But such has been the demand that Edexcel wants Britpop - notable for its revival of British guitar bands - to become an option in its own right.
A spokeswoman said: "This does not change the requirements of the course. The classical component is still the same."
Britpop artists continually made the headlines during the 1990s, especially with the ongoing feud between Blur's Damon Albarn and Oasis' Gallagher brothers.
Other bands, such as Suede, Sleeper and Echobelly, also sold thousands of records.
The mid-1990s music scene became known as "Cool Britannia".
Such was its popularity that Noel Gallagher attended a drinks party hosted by Tony Blair shortly after he was elected as prime minister in 1997.
If Edexcel is successful, Britpop will be offered to students due to sit GCSE music exams in 2007.
Now...not perfectly believable...since they appear to get another sax playing Jon Stewart muddled up too...
I reckon the British based nature and guitar playing credit is probably believable - so, Jon perhaps played guitar on Melanie C's second and most probably final album.
I'd like to take a brief time out from the world of Morrissey and ask for your support for a personal community effort to raise funds for the South Asian tsunami disaster still in need. I'm taking donations through the end of January to go towards CAREs Asia Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Fund in the name of the Morrissey-solo community. If you have already given, please give again! I donated $500 earlier to Oxfam and am donating another $500 for this collection. I'll report at the end how much was collected.
If you would like to donate by credit card (or PayPal account), click below:
If you would like to donate in another way, please email me at david[a]morrissey-solo.com . Info on CARE.
The Big Blind
Louise Wener
ISBN: 0340820322 Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 13/9/2004
£6.99 RRP Paperback
Audrey Unger hasn’t seen her father since she was a child. A professional poker player and compulsive gambler, he left home when she was eleven years old and disappeared from her life for good. Now in her early thirties and poised on the edge of her own mid-life crisis, she makes the decision to try and find him. To discover what it was that made him gamble. To discover what drove him to give her up. Big Louie is the key to her father’s world. An agoraphobic, card playing, Hans Christian Anderson sized giant, who hasn’t left his flat in over three years. Fighting a battle with his own phobias, he takes Audrey on a journey of self discovery. He guides her through the subtleties of professional poker; the thrill of high stakes gambling; and on towards a final hand of cards that will change both of their lives for good.
From a rainy café in Kentish Town to a drive to Primrose Hill, Carmen Lichi
discovers the songwriters - and their words - that have immortalised
locations in north London
(excerpt)
Belsize Park also seems to be the bastion of ladette culture - with both the
late Kirsty MacColl and Louise Wener, of faded Brit Pop band Sleeper, using
the setting for alcohol-induced lust.
MacColl is characteristically humorous and self-deprecating as she recalls
an evening of unrequited love against the backdrop of a victorious football
game in England 2, Colombia 0 from her 2000 Tropical Brainstorm album:
"Oh you shouldn't have kissed me and got me so excited/And when you asked me
out I really was delighted/So we went to a pub in Belsize Park/And we
cheered on England as the sky grew dark/Oh you shouldn't have kissed me
cause you started a fire/but then I found out that you're a serial liar."
Sleeper, however, clearly have other ideas. In the 1995 prototypical girl
power anthem, Lady Love Your Countryside, Louise Wener, famed (if only) for
her outspoken views, promises her conquest:
"Come over here/And we could spend some time shopping till it gets dark/Come
over here/ and we could spend our lives puking in Belsize Park/You know life
is a mess/I want to see you boxing naked to the death."
So, I'm an internet junkie, what can I say ?
I had disconnected my land-line telephone last Wednesday and I thought that the cable man was going to show up on that Wednesday to hook me up to the internet. As it happened, the next guy wasn't going to be available in my area until this Sunday (12/19), which kind of annoyed me because that would leave me with a few days of a lack of the 'net. Sigh.
I suppose it could be worst,
but I can't believe it's not better.
Okay, so here is the breakdown of cost from before and after:
SPRINT - $28.95 for standard telephone service
- $0.00 for work internet
- Connects at "56.6k"
- DSL not available via Sprint in my area.
- Note: time-consuming... takes forever to download, sometime randomly disconnect
COMCAST - $47.95 for internet ($29.95 for the first 3 months)
- $9.95 television
- $3.00 modem rental (can't commit to this yet, but eventually I will buy one for myself)
- Connects at 2-3mbs
I realized that I am paying twice as much as dial-up (which was basically for the telephone service), but there was a time that I was paying an additional $10 a month for dial-up, so technically it would've been more like $40 vs $60.
Plus, the other thing is that I have two computers and we can both be online at the same time, as opposed to what was available previously: one telephone line.
Anyway, it should be good, I'm looking forward to a faster internet experience. If you know of a cheaper broadband-type of service that's available without the telephone service (I've read a lot about "naked DSL" lately, which I'm assuming will be cheaper than cablenet), please let me know. I'm only loyal to the lowest rate, because I'm poor.
You are Elastica. You like to keep yourself busy. You don't crave attention or money. You do what you want and don't care what anyone thinks of you. You're spiky, tough and energetic.
VAMPIRES: THE MASQUERADE
(Nov 2004)
I hate these quiz things that everyone likes. I had to take this particular one only because I was trying to get "You are Sleeper", but unfortunately there were only a few results and Elastica seems like a good choice if any.
You know, I've lost my 5th ATM Bank Card. Everytime I lose them, I always tell myself "Never again!!" It's always one thing: I stick my card in the Automatic Teller Machine and then as soon as it spits out money, I'm off running !!
I'm playing this video game called "Vampires: The Masquerade" and there is this woman in the video game that looks just like Louise ! At least, I think it looks like her :)
I hung out with my brother yesterday and we watched Morrissey and The White Stripes videos. I didn't know he liked them at all, I guess he's really growing up.
I bought my first scarf yesterday too. EL tells me it's very "peppery" and then made fun of my hat.
At the video shop today, I ran into two people I knew, but I couldn't remember their names. I'm terrible with names. They looked at what I was renting: The Stepford Wives (2004), Envy, and Lady Death. I told them, "It's free, don't make fun of my choices."
Since joing Hollywood Video's "MVP" program, I've must've rented at least 60 DVDs in the course of two months.
From former Brit pop star turned novelist Louise Wener comes a romantic yet edgy novel about friendship, love, growing up, and always following your dreams. For readers of smart British women's and men's pop fiction such as Anna Maxted, Elizabeth Young, Carole Matthews, and Nick Hornby. On sale 3/15/05 trade paperback.
From the author of The Perfect Play comes a charmingly
romantic–yet very edgy-novel set in the music industry about friendship,
love, growing up, and always following your dreams.
GOODNIGHT STEVE MCQUEEN (US)
(Mar 2005)
Danny McQueen has dreamed of being a pop star since he was thirteen-years-old. Now he's twenty-nine and still dreaming. But he faces a dilemma. His girlfriend Alison wants him to sort his life out. She's given him an ultimatum: Find a record deal by the end of the year or it's find a new girlfriend. When is it time to give up on your childhood ambitions? When is it time to stop watching Columbo in your underpants and get a proper job? Is six months long enough for one last assault on the big time? Is friendship ever more important than love? Is it just your imagination or can your girlfriend always tell when you've been looking at Internet porn? With the help of his boss Kostas, his two best friends, and an eighty-year-old Kung Fu enthusiast called Sheila, Danny McQueen is about to find out.
Louise Wener spent the nineties fronting britpop band Sleeper, and appeared on posters in the rooms of students all over Britain. We take a look at who she was and where she is now.
Born in Ilford, Essex, but grew up in the suburbs of London, Louise was always the key figure in Sleeper as much as the singer of any band always is. A uniqueness though, is that Louise wrote, or at least co-wrote all of the songs for Sleeper - most of them on her own, such as the top hits Inbetweener, Nice Guy Eddie & What Do I Do Now?.
Louise only learnt to play the guitar when she was 22, after being a few college bands that were going nowhere, and thought she could do better on her own.
Upon the bands growing success, the media could always rely on Louise to provide a contentious comment, successfully able to anger vegetarians & feminists among others. Eventually though, the band was getting places more on the music than the interviews, at least until the limited success of the third album which was mostly Louise's own album, and a downgraded tour which was soon followed by the splitting of the band in early 1998.
BELLE & SEBASTIAN PIN (Karren & Sandy)
(31 Oct 2004), photograph by Matt Zulawski
I hate aol, but for some reason, I really like AIM. I'm
sleepercat on there - please send me a message if you want to hang out (or want to play Scrabble online).
I'm going to Scottsdale, Arizona, for a work-related event in January 2005. I was told that the resort there is quite nice and I have my own room. Internet will be provided, so I'm taking my home laptop, and hopefully it'll be good and fun. I think the only real work day is Thursday, I will be assisting in a Power Point presentation. Friday, I think I'm going to do a hot air balloon (it was either that or more golfing or ATV/Hummer in the desert). Not really sure what I'm actually doing in AZ, but hey, it's all paid for, so I might as well show up.
I'm hoping to be around Toronto, Canada, around March 2005-ish. I will be seeing some really, really old friends called Karren & Sandy (can't believe their photograph are online because they're so camera shy!) and Linh, who I met through a Friendship Book (penpal) around 1995. I've met Linh in real-life before in Los Angelese, I still have this old photograph of us being all young and dorky.
Oh, and I haven't scared off Celeste.... yet. (Shadez is Celeste).
Sigh, I wish someone else would move up here!
Update: My DVD list is now automatic via Intervocative Software. If you choose to, you can have your DVD list online, so anytime you add something new, the list gets updated. It's a pretty neat software.
Oh, my S*M*A*S*H website is getting quite a bit of activity due to their tour recently.
WHO NEEDS FLU SHOTS WHEN RHINO HAS THE CURE! DATE: OCTOBER 26, 2004
Highly Anticipated Cure Reissue Campaign Begins With Expanded, Remastered THREE IMAGINARY BOYS December 7
THREE IMAGINARY BOYS
(Dec 2004)
LOS ANGELES - Twenty-five years after
The Cure began their global pop invasion with their debut disc, THREE IMAGINARY BOYS, Rhino Records gives the album its first-ever U.S. domestic release with a deluxe two-disc edition loaded with previously unreleased tracks. THREE IMAGINARY BOYS will be available December 7 at all retail outlets and at www.rhino.com
for a suggested retail price of $18.98.
The album marks the kickoff to Rhino Records' revitalization of The Cure catalog. Each title will receive a sonic upgrade and be released as a deluxe double-disc set featuring the original album on one CD and numerous rarities on the other. In addition, each release will come with a 16-page booklet filled with photos and tour memorabilia from the personal archives of vocalist Robert Smith, as well as a track-by-track commentary and notes by U.K. music scribe Johnny Black.
Cure fans have long clamored for THREE IMAGINARY BOYS, an energetic 1979 U.K. debut which features "10:15 Saturday Night," "Grinding Halt," "Fire In Cairo," and a quirky rendition of Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady." The band's debut U.S. album, Boys Don't Cry, featured many of the songs on THREE IMAGINARY BOYS along with singles like "Jumping Someone Else's Train" and "Boys Don't Cry." The Rhino reissue offers the original U.K. album with an added previously unreleased instrumental ("The Weedy Burton"), as well as a 20-track bonus disc which includes the additional tracks from Boys Don't Cry, previously unreleased studio and home demo versions, live renditions, and other curiosities. In total the package includes six previously unreleased songs, eight previously unreleased versions of songs, and 17 tracks never before available on CD.
Johnny Black's liner notes, which make use of extensive and exclusive
interviews with Robert Smith, provide fascinating insight into the making of this classic album. One interesting story tells how The Cure managed to get the album recorded with virtually no budget: they simply snuck into Morgan Studios at night once the Jam had finished their sessions, and, using the Jam's gear, recorded through the night till dawn.
It's been almost three decades since a 17-year-old Smith formed The Easy Cure in Crawley, England. Despite various lineup changes, The Cure have forged an ongoing career highlighted by an astonishing run of artistic and commercial successes, including chart-topping hit singles, gold and platinum records, countless awards, critical acclaim, and an international fan base that follows the band with religious fervor. They have secured their place in music history by shaping modern rock as we know it today.
"Girls are cooler!" reckons Ros, the feisty dark-haired singer of Glaswegian trio We Rock Like Girls Don't. Popular with OneMusic users, the gals have been played on Zane Lowe and One World. They're playing London's Death Disco on February 11 and have a single out in March.
(excerpt)
How important is attitude?
Ros: "Louise from Sleeper gave opinions about all sorts and it totally took over from the music. She had to do that to get press because she didn't have a huge record company. Attitude is about having a completely rocking band on your own terms, doing your own thing, being who you want to be and not conforming to how someone says you're supposed to live your life."
Deborah Fink asked Louise to sign up (see link), but I figure others might want to add their name to the list:
You might consider adding your name to the list of signatories of Jews for Justice for Palestinians? You need do no more than sign our public statement, appended below and also found at
www.jfjfp.org where you will find a full list of our 975 signatories. You will find many artists and writers such as Stephen Fry, Alexei Sayle, Zoe Wanamaker, Miriam Margolyes, Mike Leigh, Harold Pinter, Susie Orbach and Leon Rosselson, etc. We also have rabbis, MPs, lawyers, academics, historians, novelists and poets.
JfJfP caters for a wide range of positions and our signatories include Zionists, non Zionists and anti-Zionists, with no position on one state versus two or the right of return of Palestinian refugees.
I think I am having a pretty good birthday (for once!), because of Raul, Celeste, Sara, my sister, and Dave.
Spent Saturday at the Minnesota Art Institute.
Spent Sunday eating Dim Sum.
Will be spending Monday semi-at-home. I have to show up for a 2 hour meeting, but it's my day off!!
Will be having a lunch "date" with Sophia on Tuesday.
There is a Boy that Never Goes Out:
"Ba-ba-bada-ba-ba" goes the backing vocals,
I'm trying hard not to be antisocial.
Truth be told, I'm not entirely hopeful
-The Lucksmiths
Sometime people's priorities are kind of funny.
For instance, my brother, who constantly is running low on cash, spent $30 on a cap because "it looked cool".
Or how about Celeste? She brought two crates of records, a record player... and one pair of socks.
Or the worst case of all: me. I sort of bought a house, but I'm going through a midlife crisis, so I also want a superduper fast car and, perhaps, a tank.
Also, I now know three or four Texans, and I think they're all very cool! How come none of them have accents ? Y'know what I mean, sugar?
Ever had a song stuck in your head in a loop that just won't go away? Mine was Information Society's Mirrorshades:
She said "Now you're here, you've got to show and prove,
And do that dance until it don't move.
The phone doesn't work so you won't be calling home."
I had to revisit the Hack album and it is so good. I love all the songs on it, and it's a total departure from their first record, which was basically pop music. I love InfoSoc, I mean they lived in Minneapolis for a time!
Celeste is arriving here on Saturday and I'm so excited about it. I left a voice mail on her cell phone and must've sounded like a complete dork. I had 20 things I wanted to say, but none of them came out in proper complete sentences.
I wanted to say, "We've never talked to each other, so, this is my voice. Hello, how are you? I hope you have a safe drive. Look forward to seeing you."
Instead, this is what I sounded like, "Oh, erm hi, my voice. Drive. See you. White Pizza" (My boss was asking what I wanted for lunch.)
Entry number 377:
Date: 2004-11-05 00:30:08 (Pacific Time)
Name:
Christopher
Comments:
jon stewart everywhere everywhere...
so err i recon it's not the jon stewart currently holding the front page
of amazon.com, but i was watching this indie documentry/short film last night
that i acidentaly taped a week ago. it was called 100 doors and was made by some
girl who was homeless around 15/16 and she was going round interviewing people
she stayed with... anyway, it was prett good and i watch to the end, the credits
start to roll, and there it is. "music supervisor: jon stewart". woohoo. but is
it the real one or some imposter type again?
NICK FROST, SIMON PEGG, and EDGAR WRIGHT
(15 Aug 2004)
I went to see the Minneapolis/US premiere of "Shaun of the Dead" film last Sunday. The film will be released in general selected theaters (500 screens) on September 24.
The film is a romantic comedy (with zombies). There was rarely a moment where the zombies were treated as a joke, they were real, and they could kill, yet the heart of the story is about Shaun's relationship with his girlfriend, his best friend, and his parents. There were a lot of reference/homages to earlier zombie films such as "We're coming to get you, Barbara" (from Night of the Living Dead), to the stomach-ripping scene (from Day of the Dead), to the virus-carrying monkey (from 28 Days Later).
Morrissey does appear in this film, by the way. A scene with a clueless Shaun was flipping through the television, all the news about a breakout and, for three seconds, you see The Smiths singing, "Panic on the streets of London". Very funny, there was a hoorah reaction from the audience too!
The clip they used was from the Derek Jarman video, appearing on THE SMITHS: THE COMPLETE PICTURE.
After the screening, there was a special Question & Answer session with director Edgar Wright, co-writer/star Simon Pegg, and co-star Nick Frost.
Here are some interesting items from the session:
The US DVD release will have more special features than the UK DVD, because there's a lot of things that had happened since the UK release (especially since they realized they outgross the original Dawn of the Dead and 28 Days Later in the UK).
A zombie extra actually had one of his eye pop out. Medical reasonings, not because of an accident on set.
The film was made for a mere £4 million.
Sorry for the crappy photograph, I took it secretly with my PDA. Edgar did take a photograph of the audience, which I'm pretty sure I'm in it, but I don't think the photograph is up yet. Check out the official website: www.shaunofthedeadmovie.com (I'm 'sleeperzombie' in case you want to give me some pints), or IMDB: Shaun of the Dead. You can read a review of the UK DVD at DVD Times.co.uk.
August 11, 2004 12:03 am |
New Cover for 'Gute Nacht, Steve McQueen'
What makes a responsible British school teacher leave his wife and 11-year-old daughter to hang with a slimy card shark named Jimmy Silk Socks? Poker. The adrenalin-pumping, mind-lasering thrill of poker.
Afraid she'll repeat her dad's mistakes, Audrey is a reluctant gambler with uncanny ability. But in the end, like her dad, she can't resist the allure of the game.
The Perfect Play is the highly entertaining story of Audrey's search for her deserting dad, her torrid affair with gambling and her friendship with Big Louie, an agoraphobic card master. Abandonment issues have never been so funny. (Related excerpt: Read the first chapter of The Perfect Play)
It's our annual Toilet Paper Fashion Show at work today. Lots of fun... I'm looking forward to the TP 500 race tomorrow. I'm usually the photographer for these events that goes on our intranet website, but I think my boss volunteered me to be a runner this year - which was a total surprise to me.
I always joke that this is all good clean fun.
I think last year my team won basically all the awards, especially soap carving, which I was a natural at. It's fun to carve soap, no, seriously, try it sometime.
Anyroad, my team's Horse won this year fashion show, we beat out 'engine man', 'the bride' and some guy with toilet paper on a stick.
And check out Holly's hands! Yikes:
Also, I am happy to announce that I have been nominated and won the 'Employee of the Quarter' award. The prize ? A quarter.
No, just kidding, it's a $250 gift card.
I got a similiar Employee award two years ago, too. I think this is just a cheap ploy because I never take any sick time and I hardly ever use my vacation time.
NEW YORK - Fay Wray, who won everlasting fame as the damsel held atop the Empire State Building by the giant ape in the 1933 film classic “King Kong,” has died, a close friend said Monday. She was 96.
Wray died Sunday at her Manhattan apartment, said Rick McKay, a friend and director of the last film she appeared in. There was no official cause of death.
“She just kind of drifted off quietly as if she was going to sleep,” said McKay, director of the documentary “Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There.”
Headline Set: Rolling Stones, Leeds University 1971
Featured Album: Soulwax: Much Against Everyone's Advice
Tracks: Conversation Intercom, Too Many DJ's and Much Against Everyone's Advice
Do You Remember The First Time: Soul II Soul, Kentish Town 1989
Featured Session: Sleeper, BBC Maida Vale 1994
Ultimate Gig 1: Deacon Blue, Morrissey, Snow Patrol as chosen by Alex Harkin
August 03, 2004 07:50 pm |
Wener in "Mayor of the Sunset Strip"
"The Mayor of the Sunset Strip" will also be available on DVD on 8/14/2004, although, according to their official website that it is out in theaters.
And, no, Louise doesn't striptease in this documentary...
>>>
MAYOR OF THE SUNSET STRIP Thursday, March 25, 2004 11:22:02 AM
George Hickenlooper, 2004
Country of Origin:
U.S.
Genre:
Documentary
Color or b/w:
Color/Black & White
Production Co(s).:
Caldera Productions; Kino-Eye American; Perna Productions; Questionmark Productions
Released By:
First Look Pictures
MPAA Rating:
R
Parental Rating:
Cautionary; some scenes objectionable
Please note that I am changing my email address, once again. Please start using
, although I might change it to another username since "sleeperster" sounds weird. It was a suggestion because 'sleeper' was already taken. I thought about it and I would've either gone with Sleeperchamp or Pajamapants.
Last week, I was supposed to meet my friends to see a comedy troop. I was late. Since I was already in downtown, I decided to walk down Nicollet Avenue to an import record store called Let it Be Records. But along the way, there was some sort of festival happening all summer called "Sommerfest". I ended up watching a Jazz band and then a street performer juggling sharp knives over four people underneath him. He dubbed it, "the Human Table... of Death!"
At the store, I bought two CDs, Belle & Sebastian's "Books" EP and a used Camera Obscura "Underachievers Please Try Harder" CD. B&S's "Your Cover's Blown" is the most amazing song ever. I just could not stop listening to it. The song seems like it's a patchwork of musical genres. I wish radio stations would play this song, but it's not going to happen as the song is six minutes. Too short, if you ask me.
Well, I have been buying cheap software via Ebay lately. I'm not sure that these software are entirely legal, but it's definitely cheaper than retail. I've picked up Photoshop 8 CS and Pocket Quicken for a very reasonable price.
Due to a Windows XP corrupted file, I was not able to boot up my computer.
I didn't have any start up disc either... so I ended ordering a Sony Recovery DVD from their official store. At first I tried to order it online at servicesales.sel.sony.com, but the website does not list my particular notebook model (PCG-V505DX), so I had to call their phone number, 800-488-7669, and talk to one of their operator.
She tried to sell me the "next day" option for $22 in shipping, but I thought that was a little expensive, so I opted for the only cheap option ($6) which took a full eight days to deliver (discounting Sunday).
Needless to say, I should've taken the overnight option.
Matinée Records posted some MP3 tracks of the Lucksmiths, check it out. I recommend "T-Shirt Weather" and "Untidy Town".
The Would-Be-Goods is also, er, good too.
Here is the letter I got in the inbox:
Matinée Newsletter #18 Saturday, June 12, 2004 11:06 AM
written by Jimmy
Our June Artist of the Month is The Lucksmiths! Visit the updated
artist page, read lots of interviews, watch some videos, and vote in
the favorite song poll throughout the month. The sounds page now
features five Lucksmiths mp3s including the rare track "Boat", but
check it out soon because it will only be around for the next 30 days.
All Lucksmiths releases are on sale this month so plan a trip to the
mailorder today!
The Lucksmiths is one of my favorite bands. They sing about happiness, joblessness, successlessness, relationshipsness - you know things I can't really relate to. But I still love them though.
I think the best description that I've heard someone said about their music is that they don't really write songs, but conversations.
Here are some random songs:
"It hasn't been all beer and skittles. There were some madness in the middle. I'll make a sandwich, and I'll make a mess. Am I making sense ? We were good, good friends... for a while."
"She's the opposite of coffee, she's the last thing I need in the morning."
"Are you split in two, when I talk to you. Because I'm split in three when you talk to me."
"Better Saturdays, and it's been that way since I spoke to you this morning. From a pay phone in a pub, here's the rock and rolling, there's the rub. When I spoke to you, you said, "I'll see you soon." But I won't see you for ages. And your voice sounded so small, the loneliness of a long-distance phone call."
I've seen them twice and the first time, there were a few people around. I managed to steal their setlist.
Jun 06, 2004 03:46 pm |
Trainspotting, 2-disc US DVD
I am pleased to say that Miramax finally released the best version of TRAINSPOTTING! Their previous attempt featured the US edited version with no special features (unless you count subtitles as a feature).
This new version, which was released June 1st, 2004, is a 2-disc set. It is in NTSC format and, although it lists the movie as Rated "R", this is actually the Unrated version (which is clearly marked on the front cover and appeared on the Criterion laserdisc). The audio commentary also identifies itself as the Criterion commentary, recorded in Winter 1996.
You can tell the difference between the edited version and unrated version from the Diane sex scene. (Yes, this is the first thing I skip to ... er, to make sure what version it is, of course!) In the edited version, the majority of the scene is replaced by the video of the football (soccer) goal, while the unrated version clearly shows Diane "enjoying" herself.
The US-edited version is also evident on the Canadian release of TRAINSPOTTING, which I am assuming the edited version can also be found in various other countries - except for the European version, because they don't have a problem with sex.
The special features are great, there's over 3.5 hours worth of material, and to be honest, I haven't watched the entire thing yet. The retrospective interviews has both then and now reflections and all the deleted scenes (with commentaries) directly lifted from the Criterion version.
The best part is that the main menu to play the movie contains Sleeper's "Atomic" music looped!
Jun 01, 2004 07:17 pm |
Louise Wener - Live Forever Documentary
VH1: Sleeper
(biography taken from www.allmusic.com)
just found there bio on there, you might not've seen it before. they seem to have just about every band i've ever heard of on there, too.
LIVE FOREVER was released domestically in the USA on May 18th, 2004. Unfortunately, since it there was absolutely no advertisements for it, no one cared about it. Also, it may be hard for you to find it in major stores like Best Buy or Circuit City. Although, you can always get these big stores to special order for you ... you might as well buy it online for $14.99 at www.deepdiscountdvd.com (price includes free shipping).
The US version features a different cover and is in NTSC format, coded for Zone 1 (North America).
There is a giveaway at
Bargainflix.com, it will require you to give them your email address, however.
>>>
Live Forever, directed by newcomer John Dower and produced by John Battsek following his outstanding success with the Academy Award-Winning One Day In September, charts the rise and fall of the Brit-pop music scene in the UK during the mid-nineties against the background of political resurgence of New Labour and their re-branding of an entire nation. Highlighting the spirit of 'Cool Britannia' in the 1990s, Live Forever documents a swaggering and epic celebration of the joys of living purely for the moment that not only involved the music scene but spread to art and fashion.
FEATURING MUSIC BY: Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Massive Attack, Nirvana, Portishead, Radiohead, Robbie Williams, The Stone Roses and The Verve.
Bargainflix.com
wants to give you Live Forever for FREE! We're giving away five copies this week, enter every day for another chance to win.
After 4000 downloads of the last lot, I've finally taken them
down from the site (booo) but replaced them with mp3s of the oxford
uni gig in 97 (which i got off sleeper online site). the
rm file
has been choped into 12 different files and lovingly increased from
the rm's 7 megs to over 40mb. still, who uses realplayer eh?
Anyway, they'll all be available at
www.inaudible.co.uk/../sleeperoxford
once I get round to
uploading them. there's an m3u playlist file too so you know what
order they're in.
A little something I found out while making them - zoe ball played on
the Inbetweener song so that'll be why lou's
goin on about her before they play it.
hi louisewener.com viewers
*waves* hi sleeper fans *bounces and waves* hi mum *waves parts of
his hand* hi.. um.. enough...
for those of you who think you can do better (or worse, if you see
file size as a good thing :o|) here's how i did it. and it should've
been a lot better than all those audio cables last time after a
friend finally convinced me to use LAME...
rm file downloaded from sleeper online (just over 7megs), played in
winamp 2.5e using the Tara 1.0.3b plugin, saved as a wav file using
winamps Disk Writer 1.0 plugin, choped into seperate parts using
Goldwave (goldwave.com) and saved as 16bit mono files (i forget how
they got mono in the first place...) then using LAME 3.96 beta 2 and
the RazorLame frontend, they were converted to MP3 files with the "--
alt-preset standard" command giving vbr 22khz mono ~3meg files.
weyhey.
any complaints on the procedue this way.
of course if you can play rm files and dont care about track marks,
go ahead and download/stream the rm.
Released just a few weeks before England’s near-triumph in Euro ’96 (and my wedding day, fact fans) Sleeper’s second album was bang on time for the height of Brit-Pop and Cool Britannia, and chock-full of tunes-you-could-hum.
It always struck me as rather unfair that Blur, Suede and others survived Brit-Pop intact and still-credible while just one (still pretty-good) album later, Sleeper were almost as vilified as Northern Uproar and Menswe@r. Maybe Louise Wener’s ability to provide a sound bite for any occasion distracted from the quality of the music (and yes there are a couple of duffers on The It Girl) but to me Sleeper’s albums have held up pretty well.
In a year when there was an awful lot of good guitar pop, What Do I Do Now and Sale of the Century still stood out as top-notch sing-along singles, and Wener’s ironic lyrics and breathy vocals were at their absolute best here.
For those, like me, who regret the fact that Wener’s no longer turning out pop gems, there’s some consolation in her current writing projects. Goodnight Steve McQueen is possibly the best ever novel about a guitarist forced to choose between his band and his bird!
Lumb Bank is an eighteenth century mill owner's house set in twenty acres of steep pasture land. It is half a mile from the village of Heptonstall and one mile from Hebden Bridge. It is set in striking countryside - woods and rivers, fine stone houses and weavers' cottages, packhorse trails and ruins of the old mills. Lumb Bank has one twin room adapted for wheelchair users, with en suite bathroom. Hebden Bridge is on the main Leeds to Manchester railway line (each two and a half hours from London) and, via York, is three-and-a-half hours from Edinburgh.
Lumb Bank - The Ted Hughes Arvon Centre
Heptonstall, Hebden Bridge
West Yorkshire HX7 6DF
Life may travel pretty fast but Chimp take things at their own wonderfully, unhurried pace. Purveyors of gorgeous, warm, somnambulent melodies, the five-piece are an aural delight that make you forget all your troubles and drift into an aura of blissful contentment.
Vocals/piano/bass
Jon Callard
Drums/vocals
Paul Cook
Guitar/vocals
Lawrence Collyer
Bass/piano/vocals
Stuart Ridley
Guitar
Jon Stewart
About Chimp
Who: A Brighton-based psychedelia tinged down beat combo. Numbering five.
Influences: Red House Painters, Belle & Sebastian, Brian Wilson
Success: Described 'by those in the know' as Brighton's 'best kept secret' Chimp have just released album number two on their own label. Oh, and they can also count Radio 1's John Peel as a fan.
They say: "Our live show varies from five to nine members depending on stage size and barometric pressure."
Random fact: Their line-up features none other than former Sleeper bloke Jon Stewart.
Subject : [Inbetweener] Got the brixton MP3s? Then help me out... Saturday, March 20, 2004 6:53 AM by pepsi_max2k
Didn't think you were getting those MP3s for nothing did you? Oh no
no no...
The band I run the inaudible.co.uk website for (where the MP3s are
hosted) are in an online poll/competition, and need all the votes
they can get.
If you enjoyed the Brixton stuff, may I ask/beg/plead with you to
help us out by clicking the below link and adding a couple hundred
(they were good mp3s! and really a few just ain't enough, not that
I'm complaining either way) votes for The Crimea (Ex-The Crocketts,
if you remember em).
-Chimp will be performing at The Komedia, Gardner Street, Brighton on thursday 18th March.
Tickets are £4.00 and doors open around 8pm.
The set will feature the first performances of many new songs and will also feature our new string section, Kate (violin) and Sam (cello) who have been working with us recently.
Support on this show will be from 'Jacobs stories' who are surely one of the finest acts you will see this year and really shouldn't be missed.
-Chimp are about to begin recording a third album which has the working title: 'both poles in the snow'.
There are currently 16 tracks shortlisted for recording which should be ready for release in the coming months...
-Copies of 'can't stop, on fire' will be available at the Komedia show at the special price of £5.00
Oddball brighton quintet Chimp return to Komedia for an evening of downbeat lo-fi music. Having just released their second album, met with acclaim and airplay by the likes of John Peel, Chimp are an act not to be missed this year!
I managed to tape the broadcast of the Brixton gig stuff on the radio last night and I've spent all day getting it into mp3s, and they're now up at www.inaudible.co.uk/temp2/sleeperbrixton
HarperCollins.com has some new information in regards to Louise Wener's book, "The Perfect Play" (which was previously published in the UK under the title, "The Big Blind".)
What's interesting about this version of the book is that it is meant for the U.S. readers. There will be a national marketing campaign, including:
National print advertising
National broadcast and print media campaign
Author appearances in Los Angeles and New York City
Postcard campaign
On-line promotion
Here is the information as written on their website:
A funny and heartfelt novel of high-stakes poker, lost love and gambling on oneself, Louise Wener's The Perfect Play is the story of a woman who can find happiness only by discovering the answer to the question that has haunted her since she was eleven years old.
Playing the cards life has dealt her has left Audrey Unger anxious, obsessive and without a sense of direction. Audrey's professional poker-playing father left her and her mother behind when she was eleven, his only explanation a note that advised that "one day you'll understand this was probably for the best." Now, about to turn thirty-three and poised on the edge of her own midlife crisis -- one that has her sorting her peas into prime number groups -- Audrey makes the decision to try to find him. She's prepared to risk everything in her attempt to understand him, and to finally ask what made him choose poker over his only daughter.
Big Louie is the key to her father's gambling world -- as well as an agoraphobic, ill-tempered card genius who hasn’t left his apartment in more than two years! Fighting his own phobias, he takes Audrey on a journey of self-discovery, guiding her through the subtleties of professional poker and igniting her passion for the thrill of high-stakes gambling that her father found so alluring. Shuffling a hand that includes an overprotective boyfriend, twin magician stepbrothers and a Las Vegas con man, Audrey is propelled to a play a final game of poker that will change her life forever.
With extraordinary perception and emotional insight, Louise Wener captures the comedy, pathos and drama that mark each of our lives in this compelling page-turner that exposes the dark underworld of real Las Vegas poker. Smart, absorbing and addictive, The Perfect Play introduces a writer with an edgy and entertaining style all her own.
Imprint: William Morrow; ISBN: 0060585471; On Sale: 04/06/2004; Format: Hardcover; Subformat: ; Length: ; Trimsize: 6 1/8 x 9 Rough; Pages: 352; $24.95; $0.00(CAN)
In addition to the book information, you can keep track of the latest HarperCollins news for Lousie Wener via their Author Tracker.
As the Fiver wanders home after another fruitless night at Chasers, we know how it feels to be on the periphery of things. Just like Wales. We get Trainspotting; they get Twin Town. We get Luscious Louise Wener; they get Crusty Cerys Matthews. We get Roman Abramovich and his roubles; they get Sam Hammam and his sheep's testicles. But one man has had enough of being the poor relation. After Uefa rejected Wales' appeal against Russia's participation in Euro 2004 over Yegor Titov's failed drugs test, Mark Hughes has vowed to "go all the way" to get what he wants. And as a series of bruised centre-halves will tell you, that means trouble.
Rodney Bingenheimer a DJ in Los Angeles on KROQ is looking for Louise. It is in regards to a clip of her in a movie. She can contact him at KROQ, or Canters. Please forward this on to her...somehow.
some black session cd recorded in paris? wondered if you knew what it was as it's not listed on your site anywhere. it real? a bootleg? live or studio stuff?
BLACK SESSIONS
(2-Disc Bootleg)
Sleeper black sessions paris 1994 2cd - [paris 08/03/94] - [instrumental] [delicious] [ha ha you're dead] [alice in vain] [big nurse] [one girl dreaming] [poor flying man] [swallow] [in-between days] [twisted] [pyrotechnician] [swallow] [alice in vain] - [paris 09/12/94] - [swallow] [alice in vain] [inbetweener] [twisted] [hunch] [amuse] [vegas] [delicious] [pyrotechnician] [bedhead] GREAT COPY WITH LAZER ARTWORK
(Vu: It is a bootleg. I do not recommend people buying this.
You can view bootleg listing here: cassette bootlegs. )
19 Jul 99Wener.com 30 Dec 98 SLEEPER SPLIT!
01 Dec 98Sleeper moved to Xoom
01 Nov 98Stretch Princess moved to Xoom (again)
01 Sep 98 Stretch Princess moved onto Bitstream
01 Aug 98 Stretch Princess is launched on Xoom
01 Jul 98S*M*A*S*H & Morrissey is launched
01 May 98Sleeper#2 is launched
01 Apr 98 The it Zine issue four
01 Mar 98 March version of Sleepersite, very superclean
01 Jan 98 The it Zine issue three
-- Dec 97 moved this page to bitstream.net because the fcomm servers were too slow
-- Nov 97 put the new sleeper webpage on fcomm.net servers
-- Apr 97 worked on a frames version of the sleeper page on paragon.co.uk. this didnt last very long (only had a magazine review and some other stuff...)
-- May 97 put of the it zine #2
03 Feb 97 take a look at what my frontpage used to look like
22 Sep 96 put in a counter on the lennon.csufresno.edu site
01 Sep 96 put out a very simple sleeper webpage (with entire bside lyrics, text discography, and transcribed interviews)
-- Aug 96 put out the first issue of the it zine -- Jun 95 met louise and andy for the first time
-- Dec 94 became mad for sleeper with my friends mark and melinda ! we were listening to "alice EP", "swallow EP", and "delicious"
Sat, 13 Jan 2007 04:13:24 CST
PHONOGRAM #1 (Sep 2006)
![[VID]](http://www.inaudible.co.uk/icons/movie.gif){kind=icon}
I got my flight itinerary today. The roundtrip ticket was pretty amazingly cheap, it was $169.10 plus $67.65 (taxes/fees). I used 
, although I might change it to another username since "sleeperster" sounds weird. It was a suggestion because 'sleeper' was already taken. I thought about it and I would've either gone with Sleeperchamp or Pajamapants.
Lumb Bank is an eighteenth century mill owner's house set in twenty acres of steep pasture land. It is half a mile from the village of Heptonstall and one mile from Hebden Bridge. It is set in striking countryside - woods and rivers, fine stone houses and weavers' cottages, packhorse trails and ruins of the old mills. Lumb Bank has one twin room adapted for wheelchair users, with en suite bathroom. Hebden Bridge is on the main Leeds to Manchester railway line (each two and a half hours from London) and, via York, is three-and-a-half hours from Edinburgh.
![[SND]](http://www.inaudible.co.uk/icons/sound2.gif){kind=icon}
potter, Mon 17 Nov 13:22
